What Is a Retail Receipt?
A retail receipt is a record of sale; a document that proves the customer bought and paid for the purchased items.
Importance of The Retail Receipt
The receipt is a very important document at the retail business, because it’s the proof that a transaction has been completed at the store and based on this subsequent actions could take place, such as delivery of items, exchange of items or returning the items and issuing a refund to the customer.
Without the original receipt, a customer cannot prove that they paid for the items.
Original Vs. Copy Receipt
It’s a best practice for store owners to setup their POS to only print one original sales receipt, which will be handed over to the customer at the time the transaction has completed. Any subsequent reprints for the same receipt should be labeled as “Duplicate” or “Copy”.
In case of exchange or refund, the original receipt should be taken from the customer and attached to the exchange/return receipt copy that is kept at the store.
Read Also: Retail Returns
This is important to prevent any misuse of the receipt in issuing false refunds by store employees in the future. If this happens, it can be uncovered during a retail audit through the “Duplicate” labelling.
Retail Store Receipt Template
You are allowed to share it on your website with attribution.
The best practice for a retail store receipt is to include the following information:
- Company Details: Name, address, phone, Tax ID.. etc.
- Transaction Details: Transaction no., date, time, cashier, shop no., till no.
- Product Details: Item code, product description, quantity sold, price, discount or promotion if any.
- Payment Details: Total amount paid by the customer, taxes if any, payment method and authorization code* if applicable
- Important Message: Any important communication such as return policy, instructions or promotional messages
*In case of payment by cards, it is advised to include the credit card authorization code that the card machine generates on the retail receipt generated by the POS. This is to be able to link both transactions together, so the person doing banking on the next day will be able to reconcile all the card transactions with their corresponding POS transactions.
- Managing Store Operations
- Areas of Responsibility
- Assessing & Managing Performance
Another best practice is to print a barcode at the end of the receipt encoded with the transaction number. This makes it easy for cashiers to scan it for exchange or return purposes, as this will populate the transaction details on the spot, without the need for doing a manual search for the transaction.
In case of issuing gift receipts, some information, such as price, discount and payment details, are not printed on them.
Manual Invoice
Stores that use a POS rely on the machine to generate the receipt once the transaction is completed. However; in many cases something could happen that prevents the POS from printing receipts, such as errors in the POS or receipt printer or electricity outages.
In this case the store must create a manual invoice and fill it with the essential information and hand it over to the customers. This is to satisfy the regulational requirement for customers to be given a proof of purchase, and also in case they needed it later to exchange or return the items they purchased.
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